One of my favorite signs of spring is the Bradford Pear in bloom. But somehow I never noticed that the smell from the flowers is not the nicest smell in the world. The other day I was out in front where our tree is in it's full glory and I kept smelling a slightly rotten meat smell. I thought maybe something had gotten into the garbage that was really rank. I stuck my head in all my garbage cans and they didn't have any odor to speak of. But on my way back inside I noticed the smell was worst right by the front door. Looking around the only thing different than usual was the tree in full bloom. So I turned my nose that way and sho-nuff, that was it. But the smell only lasts a few days and I still wouldn't trade the sight of Bradford Pear's in bloom. I just won't keep sticking my nose right up the tree. Well unless I decide I have to take close-ups of the flowers!!
The weather was all over the map this week. Everything from 17 degrees one morning last week to a high of the mid 80's a few days later. Luckily we finally got some rain, 1.5" to be exact. It was a nice steady soaking rain that will really start to green things up nicely. Of course the weeds are already greening up and taunting me from the back lawn. I've pulled a few but not much else has been done in the way of gardening.
Knitting is another story tho. I have done my share and then some. Audry II is growing by leaps and bounds. She is up to 211 squares when I took her picture 2 days ago. She is finally as wide as she is going to get so now I just need to keep doing straight rows across til she is tall enough. Which is going to take some time yet-maybe another 4-6 months?
I also have gotten the Aran Cardigan almost to the point where I have to do the sleeves. Maybe another 1/2" of knitting is all I need. I am dragging my feet a bit because before I can do the sleeves I will have to do more math and more spreadsheeting, more planning and probably more cursing to get the sleeves started. But it must be done or I will just have an Aran tube to look at next winter.
But the most fun of the week came when I was finally able to start dyeing yarn. My KnitPicks order came in last Friday but I knew I had to wait until Tuesday to do a thing with it. About the only thing I could do ahead of time was wind the yarn from the skein in came in to a ball. Then I could re-skein it into workable portions for the dyeing process. Finally on Tuesday I got out all my supplies, queued up the best of the dyeing tutorials, drapped the kitchen with plastic and got started. So far I have used 5 totally different methods and have gotten 5 different results with lots and lots of learning as I went. All came out usable and 1 even came out great. But each time I know I can do better on the next batch I try using that method. By the time I am done with this 200g of yarn I ought to be pretty settled in my methods and have it all down to a science. Of course it would be better if I was making notes along the way, but that would be so not me!! And I will pay for it I am sure. But Audry II will eat all my yarn samples and be happy for them. In fact all my hand dyes are knitted into Audry at least once. BTW-I was very impressed with the KnitPicks Bare sock weight yarn. Very inexpensive and held up well to the abuse of dyeing and knitted into my project like a dream
I finally got to the doc this week and he feels a lot of my current symptoms are menopausal related(I could have seen that one coming). So I got put back on HRT, stonger than what I used to take. But he is also very concerned about my thyroid. Says I have every symptom in the book, even ones I did not notice or attibute to anything. So he is doing a more thorough work-up on that than any of the other docs have. I have had the basics run many times and have even had them come back off the charts low and then a month later be normal when they re-run them. So if my thyroid in low then please let it show this time and if not-great. But it would be great to have a few things explained and fixed and thyroid would be a better explanation than alot of other things would be.
Well aside from having a birthday tomorrow and it being the first day of spring to boot, this next week will probably be the same as usual. I am trying to bump my walking up a notch since it is only a little over a month til the marathon(pretty much decided to do) and of course my knitting projects will be what they have been for awhile. I still have over 100g of yarn to dye, lots more ideas of how to dye it and Audry II whispering from the living room, "Feed me....Feed me....."
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